.START 

Nissan Motor Co., Japan's second-largest car maker, announced Wednesday that the parent concern's pretax earnings in the first half ended last Sept. 30 rose 14% to 88.32 billion yen ($618.1 million) from 77.6 billion yen a year earlier.
Nissan cited strong domestic sales against the backdrop of continuous economic expansion. 

Profit surged 42% to 40.21 billion yen, or 16.09 yen a share, from 28.36 billion yen, or 11.72 yen a share. 

Sales totaled 1.916 trillion yen, climbing 17% from 1.637 trillion yen in the year-earlier period. 

Nissan scheduled a seven-yen interim dividend payment, unchanged. 

Atsushi Muramatsu, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Nissan, said, "The company has experienced a remarkable turnaround in terms of profitability since the fiscal year ending March 1987, when the sharp and rapid appreciation of the yen caused many difficulties. 

"It can be said that the trend of financial improvement has been firmly set," he added. 

